The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1887-05-12
Welded IN DEATH.


Welded IN DEATH.
Across the level tongue Of land from
which the battle-scarred. earthquake
shaken city Of Charleston looks East
ward stretch the grass-covered mounds
which are all that is left of the mighty
Notifications that Lee and Beauregard
built and armed nearly quarter Of .
century ago. Approaching the bank
Tapped by the lazy wavelets Of the
Ashley, these traces Of the defensive
works of that era run Northward of a
peaceful battle-ground in which the
dropping branches of the magnolia and
palmetto trees sweep the tops OF the
stones that record the names Of men
and women who have found rest be-
meath that sod in the generations that
have passed since the stalwart and
splendid Huguenot pilgrims who had
escaped Carriers massacre established
the city and the state. A perpetual
peace dwells upon the spot; the fra
GRANGE Of roses and magnolias per-
fumes the atmosphere; the remnants of
the forts have been smoothed by the
indomitable hand of time into fitting
semblance with the scene; il is difficult
even to find upon the veterans Of the
arboreal growth the scars Of the shot
and shell that once whistled and
screamed from the great guns Of Dahl
green's monitors and Gilmore's batteries
over this lovely God Acre of the
Southern land; and between the LEAKAGE
of the sturdy trees the visitor catches
glimpses of famous old St. Michaels
spire and all the broad and beautiful vista
Of river. city and sea that extends to
the horizon of the Atlantic.
1t is the ancient and venerable ceme-
terry of Christ Church Parish, around
which Beauregard drew his military
lines of decentralization and so brought
the rude and noisy hustle Of war into
intrusion upon the everlasting sleep of
South Carolinians who had preached
notification and talked states rights
five lustrums before speech became
powder and shot and bloodshed.
The westering sun bathes in golden
glory one Of the most prominent monu-
ments in this city of the dead slend-
er and graceful marble shaft browning
turfed hillock that from time to time
blooms with the profiigate beauty Of
flowers that bespeaks assiduous and in
defatigable care for the memory of the
tenant of the tomb. On the face that
is turned toward the sunset is the in
scription:
MARGARET PIcKENs DE ROCHELLE
Dec PATH, 1864.
When South Carolina seeded from
the Union and lit the fires of civil war
her governor was Francis w. Pickens, a
member of the slave-holding aristocracy
that boosted of its blue blood, and, like
the feudal system of which it was
modern simulacrum. occasionally devel-
oped noble and admirable types Of men
and women. To that rank Governor
Pickens was entitled and Of all the fair
and lovable women to whom his dis
tinguished family had given birth no
one was sweeter or more beautiful than
the daughter. who, when Major Ander-
son lowered the flag on Sumter, was
budding into charming womanhood.
1t has been truly said that the war was
prolonged by the courage and persis-
tency with which the women of the
South imbued the men. No history has
ever adequately told the sacrifices that
they made, the sufferings that they pa
tiently endured to cheer and prompt the
soldiers and sailors who served under
the banner of the lost cause. Nowhere
between the Potomac and the Mexican
Gulf was was their spirit Of answering
devotion more manifest and active than
in the capital of the Keystone State of
the Southern Confederacy; and there
was nc patriotic project mooted in which
women could share to which Margaret
Pickens did net contribute.
TYPE OF SOUTHERN BEAUTY.
Turning back to the Charlerton news
papers Of the war epoch, her name is
found hundred times upon their worn
and fading pages, In 1862 the women
Of the city turned their jewelry. their
diamonds-gems that had come down
to them from their Huguenot and Eng
fish ancestors-their silver plate and in
Vulnerable articles of bric-a-brac into
the money that paid for the ironclad
ship-of war Palmetto State that on
January 81, 1868, sunk the United
States gunboat Mercedita in a battle
in Charleston Harbor. In the enter
- scs, thn I'm
Margaret Pickens was proficient and
untiring. She stripped herself Of her
jewelry, and she figured in leading
capacity at the fair or bazaar at which
the women sold their treasures that
THE Ladies Gunboat'' might be built.
A bright young Englishman. who had
come into Charleston as an officer Of
one of the blockade runners, saw her on
that occasion and wOrshiped her
through the medium of letter to a
friend in Liverpool that found its way
into the columns of the Liverpool
Mercury. He wrote:
Il have seen tonight the loveliest girl
that my eyes ever gazed upon and the sight
Of her was worth the guinea OF sailors
wages thatI paid for the queer little flower
before me as l write. The picture Of her
face which hold in memory would make
me willing at any time to take the chances
of being caught or shot to pieces i.y the
Yankees in lodging the blockade. She ID
rather tall, clean built as . Shanghai clipper,
her eyes and hair are nutbrown and her
voice as soft as that of any OF the Mnorca
girls.n
For nineteen months, beginning with
June, 1853. Charleston suffered the
most prolonged and tremendous bonn
bardment ever inflicted upon an Ameri-
can city. All the lower part Of the
town was swept by day and night by
Gilmore's 30O-poundcr shells and for
saken by its population. The roar Of
the artillery fire upon Fort Sumpter and
the other defensive works was well nigh
incessant, while the battles upon Morris
I'll Tho v,1ccnlstnvn ~ Enrf W